Drone

Watch: How ’60 Minutes’ Filmed an Impossible High-Speed Drone Swarm

60 Minutes nearly deserted this story about military drones since they could not figure out how to movie it.

If you were asked to film a swarm of things not much larger than an iPhone 6+ flying erratically at 50mph, how would you do it?

If you’re currently scratching your head, do not feel bad. So was the team at 60 Minutes after they were approved approval to film a military test of the innovative Perdix drones flying in autonomous development above the Mojave desert.

His response to attempting to film the small drones was, “What? No other way. I can’t do this.”

At initially, cameraman Ron Dean was sent to do a practice run, recording simply 2 of the drones. “My lens couldn’t get close enough,” said Dean. “It wasn’t a long enough lens.”

It appeared so difficult to movie that 60 Minutes almost deserted the shoot entirely. That was till the choice was made to bring in Rudy Neidermeyer, a professional golf cameraman with experience recording tiny, fast-moving objects (specifically, golf balls).

Important to effectively capturing the drones was Niedermeyer’s set: a Sony 4300 which is described in the video as “a brand-new 4K electronic camera that basically runs 490 frames per second.” The camera is tethered to a PWS-4500 4K server, which has the ability to slow the video down, permitting audiences to appreciate the minute information.

Even with his experience and specialized electronic camera, Neidermeyer’s response to attempting to film the small drones was, “What? No chance. I cannot do this.”

Niedermeyer’s experience dominated. By starting his shots very wide and tightening up in as he ended up being significantly comfy preparing for the drones’ motions, he had the ability to record some extraordinary video footage of some extremely quick– and very small– objects.